Lame-O-Rama

I realize that in this day and age, companies have to think of creative ways to recruit and attract talent to their organizations. That is, of course, while remaining legally compliant and not getting too unorthodox. But I have to tell you; the story that my friend told me about his interview at the Horseshoe Casino Cleveland really takes the cake. Talk about bizarre…

He applied there to be a table dealer. Even though the position requires extensive training, which is unpaid, he has been out of work following a layoff and figured that he had nothing to lose. Anyway, he received a call from the casino and was asked to report downtown last week for a “group interview.”

Now, any time I hear the words “group interview,” it makes me think of the movie “Boiler Room” and the famous Ben Affleck recruitment scene. LOL. Anyway, here’s what his interview at the casino consisted of. There were 24 applicants together in one room. All of them were applying for the dealer positions. Three panelists, presumably HR people, came into the room. They broke the group up into pairs of two. When it was each group’s turn, the two people had to take turns introducing each other. So my friend introduced a woman he was paired with and vice versa. Then each of the 24 people were asked one question – What would be their favorite destination vacation and why? After that, the three panelists left the room for approximately 25 minutes. When they returned, they called 10 of the 24 applicants outside and told them they had been cut. Unfortunately, my friend was one of them. I say “unfortunately” because I would have loved to see the remainder of their selection process. Perhaps it would have involved naming their favorite pizza or which brand of toothpaste they liked to use.

I mean, seriously, I can maybe understand their rationale in trying to recruit outgoing personalities, but I have a hard time seeing how they come to that conclusion based on their initial screening process. Throw in the fact that they probably lose out on some of the best applicants anyway due to their multi-week-no-pay training system and I’d say that this is not the best all-around recruitment approach. It’s too bad; I’d love to stop down and tell them about my trip to St. Thomas a few years ago.